What does promotion of social justice mean and require – from research methodologies, dialogue, teaching, and the researcher as an academic actor? The two-day seminar ‘Working with and for Social Justice’ 15-16.3 invites scholars to discuss promotion of social justice in and through their work, providing a space to approach this from a variety of perspectives. We hope to explore intersections and intertwining of academy and activism, private and professional life.

We welcome you to join the two open keynote lectures followed by discussions. The lectures will be held in the Minerva building, Siltavuorenpenger 5A, basement (-2 floors), University of Helsinki.

FRIDAY 16.3. AT 9.30-11.30, MINERVA K232
Be(com)ing Sámi and an Earthling: A (Post) AutoethnographyDoctor Hanna Guttorm (Sámi University of Applied Sciences & University of Helsinki)

The seminar is arranged by the Nordic Centre of Excellence, Justice through Education in the Nordic Countries (team 4).

More information on the seminar: riikka.hohti@gmail.com | reetta.mietola@helsinki.fi

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

SARAH TRUMAN (Manchester Metropolitan University): Inhuman affects and a politics of refusal: troubling a rhetoric of inclusion in qualitative research

Sarah E. Truman is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Education and Social Research Institute, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her research focuses on reading and writing speculative fiction in high schools. She also conducts ongoing research on walking methodologies and public pedagogy with WalkingLab. Her research is informed by the feminist new materialisms with a particular interest in theories of affect, queer theory, and speculative pragmatism. Sarah is co-author of Walking Methodologies in More-than-Human World: Walkinglab (Routledge, 2018); co-editor of Pedagogical Matters: New Materialism and Curriculum Studies (Peter Lang, 2016); and author of Searching for Guan Yin (White Pine, 2011). www.sarahetruman.com

Abstract. In this paper, I consider how literacy, and education more broadly reflect and reproduce world views and communicative practices rooted in the western epistemological conceptualization of ‘Man’ (Wynter, 2003). I ‘frictionally’ (Puar, 2012) think-with more-than-human theories including Wynter’s (2015) ‘hybridity’ of bios and logos (mythoi), the inhuman, and affect in relation to an empirical research study with youth. Significantly, I show how refusal can operate as productive force that subverts dominant uses of writing, and education practices that operate through rhetoric of rehabilitation and inclusion of ‘inhuman’ others. Finally, I engage with Sylvia Wynter’s (2015) homo narrans which is the idea that we became who we are as a species in part through storytelling. While this storying capability has been used to uphold and reinforce the dominant world order, it also has the potential to undo it through what I call minor literacies.

HANNA ELLEN GUTTORM (Sámi University of Applied Sciences & University of Helsinki): Be(com)ing Sámi and an Earthling: A (Post) Autoethnography

Hanna Ellen Guttorm (PhD in 2014 at the University of Helsinki) holds a position as an associate professor in Sámi teacher education at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences, Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, Norway. In addition, she co-operates as a senior researcher in Indigenous Studies at the University of Helsinki. She has published in Qualitative Inquiry, International Review of Qualitative Research and Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodologies on (post) qualitative epistemology and research writing inspired by post structural, post humanist and Indigenous theorizations.

She is interested in social and ecological justice, as well as in maintaining and celebrating diversity in between human and more-than-human entanglements, in Indigenous as well as global levels. Additionally the experiments towards different/becoming/minotarian (post qualitative) research writing, both collaboratively and (never) alone, brings her research energy and joy.

Abstract. This poststructuralist autoethnographic thinking and wandering happens in the context of Sáminess(es) and academies, and gets inspired by new materialist and posthumanist theories and Indigenous methodologies. This is a porous and fragmentary (non) writing with memories and affects, illustrations and nomadic wonderings. Through sharing my, and never only mine, messy, and rhizomatic story I hope to widen the current discussions on Sámi identities and rights. This is different autoethnographic beginnings, diffractions, and meanders for multiple connections and towards love and affirmative critique.

In that way and additionally, this talk explores, how it is possible to act and argue (and not) at the academy in these super complicated times of growing socio-ecological challenges. And, how our questions and answers nevertheless still mostly tend to be so anthropocentric, oh yes. And, how the private and professional intertwine, indeed. And, how many perspectives there always are. And, how these detailed stories and wanderings encourage us to stay, think, and ask again, and again, with the trouble of social – and ecological – justice.

About the Author

About the Author: Charlotta Järf is in charge of the communications and marketing activities for JustEd, The Nordic Centre of Excellence, an international research network with 14 partner universities in 8 countries.
With ten years of professional experience in Communications and Marketing, and five years as a TV, radio and newspaper journalist, Charlotta has a practical set of skills in strategical communications, PR, social media, graphic design, video and content production. More from this author.

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